Chicago activists doubt Obama's explanation on questionnaire

By BEN SMITH

12/19/2007 06:12 PM EST

Aides to Barack Obama last week disavowed a 1996 questionnaire from a liberal Chicago group in which he appeared to take positions well to the left of his current stances on hot-button issues, telling Politico a staff member had filled it out incorrectly.

Now that version is being challenged by the veteran Hyde Park political activists -- and Obama supporters -- who hosted a 1996 meeting between members of the Independent Voters of Illinois Independent Precinct Organization and Obama. One board member of the group, Lois Dobry, called his campaign's explanation "ridiculous," though another former board member, Deborah McCoy, said she had no reason to dispute the campaign's version.

"We suspect this is just a case of an overeager staff member...trying to change his boss' record ex post facto to more closely agree with positions the staffer thought were most likely to get him elected now," wrote Lois and Alan Dobry, long-time Hyde Park Democratic activists, who recalled -- based on notes from the time and their memories -- hosting a September 9, 1996 meeting between IVI-IPO and Obama, then a candidate for Illinois State Senate.

"It comes as no surprise that folks may have a different recollection of what happened with one questionnaire 11 years ago. As we've said, Barack didn't see that document before it was submitted, and some of the answers unintentionally mischaracterize his position," he said.

The Dobrys wrote that Obama got a unanimous, 13-0 vote of support from the group.

"To get that sort of a vote in a very liberal district, he had to be a supporter of liberal positions," they wrote. they also wrote that they saw no "significant difference" between his current positions and those on the questionnaire.

They aired their views in a letter addressed to an Associated Press reporter, which they also faxed to Politico.

In fact, senior Obama aides maintain that key positions in the questionnaire were rendered inaccurately by his then-chief-of-staff. They say his position on abortion is more nuanced than opposing any restrictions on the procedure and that he opposes the death penalty for practical reasons, but not in principle in all cases.

"Barack wasn't in favor of a ban on handguns in '96 and he isn't today -- and that's supported by his 11-year legislative record. Even conservative columnists have said they'd scoured Obama's record for inconsistencies and found there were "virtually none," Burton said.

Obama's staff also says those were his positions at the time, though there appears to be no other evidence dating back to 1996 of his stance on either side of those and other issues.

Mrs. Dobry said she recalled the questionnaire being handed out and discussed at the meeting with Obama, and the Dobrys wrote that they considered it "inconceivable" that he would have allowed a staffer to fill out the questionnaire, though they had no direct evidence he had filled it out.

Another member of IVI-IPO who said she attended a different meeting with Obama during that campaign season, Deboray McCoy, said she left with no strong feeling of who had filled out the questionnaire, or that the questionnaire mattered as much as his performance.

"I distinctly remember coming out of that session and going straight home and saying I want this guy to be president," she said. "I'm not kidding."

Mrs. Dobry said that she also plans to vote for Obama next year, despite her dispute with his campaign over the questionnaire.

"It baffles us why anyone should see any significant difference between Barack's 11-year-old positions and his current more experienced views," she and her husband wrote.